All posts tagged: Slayer photography

Years ago, a goth I knew recounted a conversation he’d once had. “You goths, you’re so desperate to be different but you all look the same,” someone had said to him. “You don’t get it,” he replied. “We don’t want to be different from each other. We want to be different from you.” I can’t help but think of this while leafing through God Listens to Slayer, Sanna Charles’s photobook about young Slayer fans, which has just been published by Ditto Press. Whether it’s a sweaty, tangled, mosh pit crowd or a pair of pensive, long-haired kids, what comes across is the sense of community. As my goth friend pointed out, subculture is as much about being an insider as it is about being an outsider. Charles first saw Slayer perform in 2003, when she was 23 and covering the Download Festival for NME. “It was a really dusty day,” she remembers. “Slayer’s set was put back by three hours and everyone was restless. Not only that, they’d been moved from the main stage to this boiling tent.” …